I'm Bear and I run clevelandrockandroll.com which chronicles all of the rock concerts that came thru the North Coast Ohio area from the 50's until today. Check out the main website at www.clevelandrockandroll.com
Hey Cleveland, one of the biggest events in Rock and Roll is coming back to Cleveland for the 15th year in a row, The American Music Masters Series If you missed last years great event honoring Janis Joplin don't miss out this year when the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame honors the music of Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew. This great event will not only feature the music of Fats and Dave but also the great music of New Orleans.
I mean come on Cleveland the house band is none other but Dr John and the Lower 9-11 what could be better.
This isn't just a one night concert, no......this is a week long celebration starting on Nov 8 with Rock And Roll Night School: A Spotlight On Fats Domino And Dave Bartholomeaw with something new every night leading up to the main event on Nov 13th.
Last year a lot of people I told about the Janis Joplin event all said "Bear I wish I would have known, I would have loved to gone" Well now you know so go to http://www.rockhall.com/ to get tickets and for a complete list of events. It'll be the best $30 you spent lately for a night of great music.
For more information on the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and all of the upcoming events at the hall go to http://www.rockhall.com/
American Music Masters®
2010: Fats Domino & Dave Bartholomew
2009: Janis Joplin
2008: Les Paul
2007: Jerry Lee Lewis
2006: Roy Orbison
2005: Sam Cooke
2004: Lead Belly
2003: Buddy Holly
2002: Hank Williams
2001: Bessie Smith
2000: Muddy Waters
1999: Louis Jordan
1998: Robert Johnson
1997: Jimmie Rodgers
1996: Woody Guthrie
I could while away the hours, conferrin' with the flowers Consultin' with the rain. And my head I'd be scratchin' while my thoughts were busy hatchin' If I only had a brain.
I can’t get this tune out of my head this week. It started when I first saw the list of nominees for the 2011 Rock Hall Inductions.
Seriously, doesn’t it seem we go thru this every year now?
Who on this distinguished board of music experts nominates Chic....LL Cool J….Donna Summer?
Who stands up in that room and advocates for them?
Bigger question, who voted for them to get them to the final ballot?
I listened all week to spokespeople from the Rock Hall try to justify the selections, telling us that the nominees are based not on sales, popularity, etc but on their influence on music and other artists, their body of work, the length and depth of their career and my favorite “unquestionable musical excellence.”
Really…..
Can the person that nominated Chic tell me who they influenced, how their long and storied body of work demands them being in the Rock Hall? Please tell me about the depth of their career and the innovations to music they exhibited or better yet who on the nominating committee can tell me why they voted them onto the final ballot! Again! I know if I was on the committee and in that room and when Chic was brought up my first response would have been “Are you f___ing kidding me! That’s the best you could come up with!”
Really……
Look there are people on the nomination committee I really respect, some I know personally. People like Jim Henke, David Fricke, Lauren Onkey, Steve Van Zandt and Dave Marsh, I really respect their musical opinions. I don’t know who they nominated or voted for but I would find it hard to believe one of them stood up and said “This year I think Donna Summer should be inducted.”
But others on the committee, ah no……
Look, LL Cool J is the new Abba for the Rock Hall. Abba was eligible for 11 years before all of a sudden a hit movie comes out and magically they are Rock Hall worthy. LL has a hit television show and you know what…. Bam, this year’s Abba.
LL Cool J has been eligible for two years and has made the final ballot both times. Do you really think he was a bigger influence and has a better body of work than say Stevie Ray Vaughan who has never even sniffed the final ballot or Leon Russell or Peter Gabriel or …….. I could go on and on but it falls on deaf ears, which is really a strange concept since we are talking about music.
Based on the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Foundation’s own criteria for nomination, I said it last year (click here) and I’ll say it again, Frank Sinatra, Willie Nelson and Barbara Streisand all should be in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. (I can’t believe I am advocating Babs to be in the Rock Hall, look what they have done to me) Tell me where I am wrong.
Let’s look at these three artists:
They have said in the past that it isn’t restricted to just “Rock” acts….okay check.
Their body of work…. check.
Influence on music and other artists…. check.
Depth of their career and unquestionable musical excellence….duh check.
Under the criteria we are told over and over when they try to justify their nominees to us, Are they qualified to be in the Hall Of Fame….Absolutely
Should they be in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame…..? No
You know what the smart move would have been for the committee this year. Give the public a final ballot of just rock acts. If they would have given us a ballot of let’s say, Alice Cooper, J. Geils Band, Rush, Steve Ray Vaughan, Deep Purple, Peter Gabriel, Electric Light Orchestra, Jethro Tull, Lou Reed, Steve Winwood, Todd Rundgren, Yes, Moody Blues and to stop the emails to me, Kiss they would have shut up the very vocal public and then next year they could have gone back to their convoluted, mysterious ways.
That’s all they had to do…..
Do you really think someone would have thought that out after the past years of controversy? Hmmm……Let me reference my opening lines of this story, you can sing along if you want.
Look folks, LL Cool J is going to be shoved down our throats each and every year until he is inducted. Period. That’s just the way it is. That is the thinking of this committee.
Our only hope is the voters. The supposedly largest block of voters is the past inductees of the hall. Hopefully the Ozzy’s of the Rock Hall have more votes than the Madonna’s of the Hall.
Do we really need the proclaimed “Queen Of Disco” in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame?
As Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Inductee David Gilmour once said “If you liked Disco, then you really didn’t like Rock And Roll.”
Do you remember coming home from the record store and putting Jackson Browne’s “Running On Empty” on the turntable and listening to it for the first time. I mean for me, the needle would hit the end of side 2 and I would flip it over and had to play it again. It was that good. Hell I’m listening to it now as I write this review.
Last night Jackson came to town and just like the first time I listened to “Running On Empty”, he didn’t disappoint.
To me Jackson Browne is like an old pair of worn Levi’s. He’s comfortable. He’s comfortable to listen too, always has been for me. His voice takes you back to a time and decades later, the man has changed but the voice and style of song writing really hasn’t.
Jackson started the show with opening act David Lindley and started out with an acoustic set which included the great Warren Zevon’s “Seminole Bingo” and Springsteen’s “Brothers Under The Bridge” before leaving for a short time as Lindley did a couple of songs solo.
When Jackson came back it was with his full band and they were perfect for this show. They never overwhelmed the songs, they were the perfect accompaniment for a Jackson Browne show. He started the show with selections off his 2008 album “Time The Conqueror” and even though I didn’t really know the songs more than a once over, I found myself right into a groove, head bobbing and enjoying the moment. It’s like I said earlier, Jackson is like that old pair of Levi’s, just comfortable.
He soon broke into the older tunes hitting back into the early seventies with “Your Bright Baby Blue Eyes”, “Fountain Of Sorrow”, “For A Dancer”, “The Pretender” and before starting up “Rock Me On The Water” he did a little speech about the concerns of using plastic and the effect on the oceans and he was going okay until he talked about seeing the sign behind the stage warning against littering in the river for the sake of the fish and he said “Is there fish in there? You do know it does have the distinction that it once burned” which brought a spatter of boo’s and comments. He quickly ended the speech and got back to giving us a beautiful rendition of “Rock Me On The Water”. Right after someone yelled “Rosie” and he started to laugh saying “sometimes you don’t know when to do Rosie” (who would have thought a song about masturbation would bring the biggest hand! Okay that was a bad pun) and asked the crowd “Do you want to hear Rosie?” which brought a huge roar. Maybe to make up for the Cuyahoga River reference or just that it hit him at the right time because he had not been playing it at other concerts, sitting at the piano by himself broke into the crowd favorite and members of the band had to rush back out to do the call and answer part of the chorus. Without a doubt, the highlight of the night.
One of the nice things about a Jackson Browne concert is the interaction with the audience between songs, giving us a little insight into the song and what inspired him to write it. One great one was the story of his girlfriend wanting a “love song” about her that inspired him to write “My Problem Is You”. He rounded out the night with his great hits “Doctor My Eyes” and of course “Running On Empty” before doing the encores “Mercury Blues” and Little Steven’s “I Am A Patriot”.
Last night proved again, comfortable is good, if not great. If you don’t believe me go throw on that old pair of Levi’s and put “Running On Empty” back on the turntable and sit back and relax. It’s what I’m doing.
Tuesday night the Woodstock nation came to Cleveland. Okay it has been over 40 years since the Woodstock nation was at it’s zenith but looking at the crowd at the Time Warner Amphitheatre you might have stepped back in time as a huge crowd welcomed Crosby, Stills And Nash back to Cleveland.
It’s been awhile since I last saw them perform and I have to admit I was little worried about going to the show, that afternoon I almost talked myself out of it. C’mon a good scotch gets better with age, fine wines and chesses also but almost 70 year old voices….. especially voices that are as well known for it harmonies….. well that doesn't usually end well.
The verdict, I am glad I didn’t talk myself out of going and missing a great night of music.
It’s nice to go to a show and when the house lights go down the headliner knocks it out of the park with the very first song and that’s exactly what CSN did as they launched into “Woodstock”. For the next two plus hours the audience were treated to one of the iconic musical histories entrenched with idealism that stretched from Laurel Canyon to Woodstock.
“Long Time Gone”. “Southern Cross”, “Just A Song Before I Go”, “Déjà Vu”, “Wooden Ships” and that was just a part of the first set. How about throw in the beautiful Buffalo Springfield song “Bluebird” and you knew you were in for a great night of memories.
The voices, they still have it. The harmonies as always were beautiful but the strength they showed when they took the lead, was at times surprising. David Crosby showed that strength when he belted, and I mean belted out “I Almost Cut My Hair” you would have thought he was twenty years old again and rallying against the establishment! Don’t get me wrong there was a couple of rough spots especially when a moth flew into Stephen Stills mouth when he was singing Neil Young’s classic “Long May You Run” and he must have swallowed it as his voice broke a little through the song. The one thing that really stuck with me throughout the night was how good a guitarist Stills really is. He might be one of the most overlooked lead guitarist of rock and roll.
One of the only complaints, if you can call it a complaint is instead of the covers of other bands great songs they included in the second set is they left out some of their best songs. Granted hearing them do the Beatles “Norwegian Wood” and the Rolling Stones “Ruby Tuesday” (maybe better than the original?) was nice but I would have rather had them do their own great songs. Something like Stephen Stills great “Change Partners” and “Treetop Flyer” or throw in something from the The Byrds or how about just “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”, “Marrakesh Express”, “Guinnevere” or “Wasted On The Way”. With so much in their repertoire I didn’t need them to play The Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes” but that again is a small complaint.
In all, It was a night of great music from three guys that at one time helped define a generation and still all these years later can still inspire me.
I was having one of those weeks where you're just about to jump out of your skin due to the events being served up by life and as it often happens, I found myself being rescued by music. The venue was Half Price Books in Rocky River, a familiar favorite must-stop location any time that I am in the area (perhaps it could also be described as a financially draining rest stop on my personal path of life. Healthy? Hmmmm). The artist in question was Mr. Brian Wilson.
Like many of the past few generations, I was raised as a fan of both The Beatles and The Beach Boys, growing up listening to my dad's vinyl copies of various albums from the two groups. As I grew older, I began to buy copies of selected albums in the Beach Boys discography. Vocally, I was a Carl Wilson and Brian Wilson kind of guy and while I didn't hate the Mike Love vocal contributions (certainly, there are some classics there), there is no question that his material lacked the soul and feeling that you would get listening to Carl and Brian sing anything.
Of course I had read every Beach Boys and Brian Wilson related book that I could get my hands on and I had seen quite a few documentaries (including The Beach Boys: An American Band). So when The Beach Boys made their return to recording in 1985 (with their self-titled The Beach Boys release, which incidentally would be the band's final album of all-new material) after the very public tragedy of drummer/brother/cousin Dennis Wilson's drowning from a couple years prior, it was a really big deal. Listening to The Beach Boys and the subsequent odds and ends Still Cruisin' release that followed a few years later, I could tell that things had changed with Brian.
Without going through Wilson's output as a solo artist in the late '80s-'00s piece by piece, I'll summarize by saying that although Wilson now is a different person artistically than the Brian we knew during the golden age of The Beach Boys, the genius of Brian Wilson still burns within, although you sometimes have to search a little bit harder to find it. And as a music fan, I decided that I no longer wanted to spend that time searching. The following entry on the Burning Wood music blog really says it best, saying that Wilson has nothing left to prove to us as music fans. He writes that "if he [Brian] left us nothing but "The Warmth Of The Sun," that would have been more than enough for a lifetime."
Thankfully, Wilson has given us so much more beyond that and although I'm happy that he still wants to make new music, I've been happy to enjoy the albums and singles that came long before that. That's how I'd rather remember Brian as an artist instead of listening to his newer material and (often) hearing the glaring reminders of where Brian is now that I'd rather forget.
But then it happened (ooh, a plot twist - you knew this was coming, right?) as I stood there in Half Price Books and saw a promo copy of Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin out on the shelves a few days prior to street date - a definite diamond among the other more common CDs in the racks. I picked it up for a friend of mine that's a dedicated Brian Wilson devotee, and I knew that he'd appreciate the purchase (for a mere $5.99) greatly. But of course, I had to give it a brief spin to find out where Brian is at in 2010. Hey, but I thought you said that you weren't... I know, I know, but being a music fan is all about taking the chances, and this Brian Wilson album might be good. On paper, it's not exactly your typical boring covers album release, is it?
Wow, is this thing good! Listening to Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin, I was immediately taken back to being a kid, hearing The Beach Boys for the first time. A good album does that, it stirs those thoughts, feelings and emotions, and that's part of what made me so happy is that I had written off the chances of ever hearing an album again from Brian Wilson or The Beach Boys that would make me feel this way. As rock journalist David Wild notes in the liner notes, there's stuff on this album that sounds like it could have come off of a Beach Boys album from back in the day (he's specifically referencing the very Pet Sounds-like instrumental "I Got Plenty O' Nuttin').
It's fantastic, and more than that, Wilson himself sounds better vocally than I ever could have imagined possible. Produced by Wilson himself, Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin is proof that Wilson's amazing talents as a producer and arranger remain fully intact. I'm not sure how much work in the studio (and subsequent mixing magic by Al Schmitt) was required to serve up this final product, but the result is a beautiful work of art from an American treasure that will be an important addition to his catalog that people will remember over time.
14 songs, 39 minutes. And there's not a second of that time that feels wasted. If you're a Beach Boys fan, you're really going to love this.
As for me, I'm going to take a closer look at some of the Wilson material that I've missed in recent years (don't worry, I've already heard SMiLE) - first stop: That Lucky Old Sun.
As a younger guy in my mid-30s (unlike my Jurassic ol' pal Bear), it's always a bit of a rock and roll history lesson any time that I get the opportunity to talk to a classic artist like Gary Wright. The rock and roll resume of Wright is mind numbing to read and even more awe-inspiring to hear about in person from Wright himself. I spoke with Gary on the night before Ringo Starr's annual All-Starr Band tour played in Cleveland at Nautica Stage. The artists on the Ringo tour enjoy quite a posh experience, touring with a former Beatle, flying from gig to gig on his private plane.
The idea of the Ringo tour itself is quite genius – Ringo gets a band of seasoned professionals, each with their own successful singles, and the mix of Beatles, Ringo and classic rock material congeals into an evening of music that is good clean fun (along with plenty of peace and love, of course).
Wright recently released Connected, his first pop music album in 20 years, just in time for the Ringo tour. Now that the tour has come to a close, Wright will be in Chicago this weekend for the 34th annual BeatleFest, and he'll use the occasion to perform “To Discover Yourself” (a digital bonus track on Connected co-written with longtime friend George Harrison) for the first time. I spent a good amount of time talking with Wright about that Harrison connection, the new album and his impressive career.
What did you end up doing with your day off?
I went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
What did you think?
It was good. It seemed like when they edited everything together, it was done so fast that it was almost distracting. I would have liked to have seen a little bit more of the meat of some of the great artists, you know, Sly and the Family Stone and all that. They just had such tiny little tidbits in the films that they showed. It was well done, but I would have liked to see a little bit more of the performances of those people.
As an artist, how long has it been since you've been in Cleveland?
You know, I'm not sure. I know I played here a lot in the '70s with Spooky Tooth and my Dream Weaver album and touring with Yes, Frampton and Fleetwood Mac. As of late, I'm not sure – maybe around 2005?
I know you did a solo show back in April in NYC – Have you been doing a lot of shows in the past few years, playing your own material?
Uh, a fair amount, yeah. I've been doing some things with other artists. I went out with Christopher Cross, Al Stewart, Ambrosia and Edgar Winter. I've done several package shows like that. Last April, I did about 9 shows on the east coast and I'll do more of those in October and November.
The new album is being billed as your first pop album in 20 years. What brought you back to the idea of doing another album in that genre?
Just my desire to make a pop album and do it in the spirit of simplicity with simple production and not having too many things play on it. That's my roots – my roots are R&B and I've always felt that that's the way my music should be. It's a combination of R&B and ethereal space music.
It's timeless – it sounds like a Gary Wright album.
Oh, thank you!
You produced this album – did you record it at home?
Yes, I did.
This is your second go-around with Ringo's band, and as I understand it, this album started coming together before the last tour in 2008.
That's right. I started writing it before the tour.
Listening to "No One Does It Better" – that's a track that has quite a bit going on. How long does it take you to put together a track like that.
I wrote that in the studio, all of the music anyway. I finished the lyrics up when I went on a holiday to Colorado. All in all, maybe three weeks to a month. If you add up all of the time that I spent writing the lyrics, the production and the vocals.
You've got some cool special guests on this new album – you've got Ringo and Joe Walsh on the first single “Satisfied.” You've got some history with Ringo.
Yeah – I had worked with Ringo before on George Harrison's earlier albums and I also played keyboards on [Ringo's] “Back Off Boogaloo” and “It Don't Come Easy.” I had written a song with him on his new album Y Not called “Peace Train.” During the session I said “I've got a song that I want to play for you, Ringo.” I played him “Satisfied” and he liked it and I said “do you want to play drums on it,” and he said “sure.” I did the session at his studio and he put electronic drums on it that he played. Then, I asked Joe if he would want to play a solo and he agreed and I went up to his studio and he he laid his solo down. And then Skunk Baxter also came over to my place and put a rhythm guitar part down.
Where do you start with the writing process these days – do you start on guitar, or where does it start for you.
A lot of times I'll just write a song on an acoustic guitar and then I'll take it into the studio and I'll put it together in the context of all of my keyboards and the rhythms that I come up with. Other times I'll get a drum groove going and get a thing happening and that will inspire me to write a song. It's different every time. It's never the same.
I was surprised to hear that you wrote "Dream Weaver" on an acoustic guitar. Back then, how did it get to the point where the guitars exited the mix? It was unique for the time period to have an album that was all keyboards without a guitar prominently in the mix.
That's true, and I hadn't planned it that way but actually when I started writing the songs, I started to fill in the spaces with a Clavinet or a Rhodes and the other keyboards that I have. And then I thought “this sounds really cool just as it is, I'm not going to add any guitars to it.” So I did it, and it worked to my advantage because radio jumped all over it saying “this has no guitars on it,” so it was kind of cool.
Back when you were touring heavily in the '70s and '80s, what was your keyboard rig like?
Well, I had four Mini-Moogs, a Poly-Moog and an Oberheim polyphonic synthesizer. The other two keyboard players – there was a keyboard bass player, Steve Porcaro, he played keyboard bass on a Moog. I had another keyboard player who had a Hammond organ, a Fender Rhodes and another Oberheim. And then drums and two background vocalists.
I think that Ringo's concept for the All-Starr tour is brilliant, taking out people that are great musicians, but they also come armed with hit records. And I think that this year's lineup is particularly great.
Yeah, it is and it really works well – they're a great band. It's actually a very entertaining show, it's really well done, I think.
Watching some of the Youtube stuff from this tour, it seems like you all really spent a lot of time making sure that you have the proper sounds and samples to make each song sound faithful to the original. How long did you have to spend rounding stuff up on your end?
It took a while. I definitely wanted to zero in on getting the stuff to sound exactly like it did on the record.
If you buy the digital edition of this new album, there are a couple of George Harrison-related bonus tracks. George obviously was a longtime friend of yours. What's the history on these two tracks?
“To Discover Yourself” was written by George and I back in 1971. “Never Give Up,” he came over to my house and played a solo around '88 or '89 in that time period. They are available on the website on the digital edition. I'm coming out with another thing that's really cool – it's the new album on a USB drive which is encased in a little pendant with the Ohm symbol written on it. It's an Ohm necklace and you pull it apart and it's a little flash drive that comes out. It's got the entire album including all of the bonus material. It has video interviews of me talking about George Harrison, the All-Starr band, the making of Dream Weaver and Connected. It has extra photos, a video of George and I together – he sang on one of the songs that I did, “Don't Try To Own Me.” And it has the original "Dream Weaver" demo on acoustic guitar plus five other tracks. The URL of the website is www.thedreamweaver.com.
Your archives must be pretty well organized to be able to dig out a song that was written in 1971.
Well, I had all of the lyrics and I remembered the song quite well. I never forget songs that I write. I actually recorded that on the day that George passed away.
How did you come to know George originally?
I was invited to play on his first session for All Things Must Pass, which was “Isn't It A Pity.” Klaus Voorman called me up – Klaus was a friend of George's and played bass on most of the album. He asked me if I wanted to come and play keyboards, [because] George needed another keyboard player. I went to the sessions and I met George and we immediately hit it off. I wound up playing on the rest of the album and I played on his subsequent albums and we wrote songs together. We became really good friends.
The first time that I ever heard “Love Is Alive” came via Joe Cocker's version on his Night Calls album.
[laughs] Here's something funny – as we arrived today at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, that's what was playing. I don't think they planned it, and in fact, I asked the guy when we walked in if they had done that on purpose. [laughs]
This far into your career, what keeps you engaged in making new material. What's your goal?
Well, my goal is to get it out to as many people all over the world as I can, to promote it by doing tours and interviews like I'm doing now, and get more fans. I think it's important.
When you're not recording and touring, what are you up to generally? Do you still do any session work?
Not really. Occasionally, I'll do some stuff like that if it's for Ringo or other friends of mine. Sometimes I will write with other people on certain projects. I actually was supposed to get together and write with someone from the Black Eyed Peas, but then the Ringo tour came up and I ran out of time. So I will do those kind of projects from time to time. I'm going to write a book next year, so I think that's going to take a bunch of my time.
That's one reason that I was interested to talk to you, because of all of the really cool things you've done over the years. I'm sure you have no shortage of stories for that book.
[laughs] No, I don't!
I look at "Dream Weaver" as the gift that keeps on giving. Obviously it was in Wayne's World, and now this year, it's in Toy Story 3.
That's right, and it was in The People vs. Larry Flynt. It just keeps reinventing itself.
Were you familiar with Wayne's World at the time Warner Brothers approached you?
I had seen it a couple of times on TV, the version that they did when Madonna was there. I thought they were funny, and then when I saw the film, I thought it was hilarious. I like those guys.
I can imagine that certain artists that were not familiar with the film might not have been so keen on having their music included in the movie, because they wouldn't want to risk being a punchline. For those that bought in, it was obviously a great move.
Yeah, I think so too.
Prior to your musical career, you studied psychology – was that plan B in case the music thing didn't work out?
No, no. I actually hadn't even considered doing music. At that time, I wanted to go be a doctor. I studied a year of medicine and then I did some post-graduate work in psychology in Germany. And then I decided I really didn't want to be an academic or a doctor. That's when I really got back into music. I'd always played music when I was in college and in high school on the weekends with various bands, because I loved music so much that I enjoyed playing it.
What instrument did you start out with?
Keyboards, piano and then organ.
Was Spooky Tooth your first involvement with a band?
Yes, it was.
It's really amazing the number of projects that spawned from that group.
That's right – Foreigner, Humble Pie, Mott The Hoople, my own career...
What's next for you after the Ringo tour wraps up?
I'll probably start another album in the next year or so, and I'll be touring a lot, so I have plenty on my plate.
I’m jaded, I’ll admit it. In an era of music where singers like Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus are celebrated, I’m jaded.
That’s why on Saturday when I got to sit thru one of the best nights of music I can remember, I feel a little less jaded.
Saturday at the Schottenstein Center in Columbus I had the pleasure of listening to Carole King and James Taylor play hit after hit after hit for nearly 3 hours and I wished it could have gone on longer.
Forty years ago King and Taylor played at the now defunct Troubadour club in Los Angeles as they helped usher in the singer-songwriter era of the early 70’s and now in 2010 they shared the stage in the “Troubadour Reunion Tour” and if you closed your eyes, you would swear you were back in 1970. Yea, his hair has receded, they both have more lines on their faces but their voices….their voices are like a fine wine. It just seems to get better with age.
Performing in the round they were accompanied by members of the original band from the 1970 shows, guitarist Danny Kortchmar, drummer Russell Kunkel and one of my favorites bassist Leland Sklar who were essentially the band on the King’s “Tapestry” album and Taylor’s “Sweet Baby James”.
The concert had many great moments as they passed the spotlight back and forth singing some of the most memorable songs of our generation. Songs like “So Far Away”, “Country Road”, “Jazzman”, “Sweet Baby James”, “ I Feel The Earth Move”, “How Sweet It Is”, “Natural Woman”, “Carolina On My Mind”, “Sweetwater Jack”, “”Shower The People”, “It’s Too Late”, and “Fire And Rain” were just a sampling of the 28 songs they played as you sat there after each song and thought “how can they top this?” and they would come up with another amazing song from their vast repertoire.
The musical highlights were many but some of the most memorable moments were non-musical. Taylor’s back stories about his songs, King’s energy and huge smile as she danced around the stage and especially the finale when the two sat down on two stools, she interlocked her arm thru his and they gave a stirring rendition of “You Can Close Your Eyes” and at the end she laid her head on his shoulder and he gave her a kiss on the forehead showing us what the two of them mean to each other.
You know I just don’t see a reunion tour of Justin and Miley in 40 years and I’m happier for it.
Based on the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Foundation’s own criteria for nomination, I said it last year (
Our only hope is the voters. The supposedly largest block of voters is the past inductees of the hall. Hopefully the Ozzy’s of the Rock Hall have more votes than the Madonna’s of the Hall.
That says it all…… 
When Jackson came back it was with his full band and they were perfect for this show. They never overwhelmed the songs, they were the perfect accompaniment for a Jackson Browne show. He started the show with selections off his 2008 album “Time The Conqueror” and even though I didn’t really know the songs more than a once over, I found myself right into a groove, head bobbing and enjoying the moment. It’s like I said earlier, Jackson is like that old pair of Levi’s, just comfortable.
It’s nice to go to a show and when the house lights go down the headliner knocks it out of the park with the very first song and that’s exactly what CSN did as they launched into “Woodstock”. For the next two plus hours the audience were treated to one of the iconic musical histories entrenched with idealism that stretched from Laurel Canyon to Woodstock.
The voices, they still have it. The harmonies as always were beautiful but the strength they showed when they took the lead, was at times surprising. David Crosby showed that strength when he belted, and I mean belted out “I Almost Cut My Hair” you would have thought he was twenty years old again and rallying against the establishment! Don’t get me wrong there was a couple of rough spots especially when a moth flew into Stephen Stills mouth when he was singing Neil Young’s classic “Long May You Run” and he must have swallowed it as his voice broke a little through the song. The one thing that really stuck with me throughout the night was how good a guitarist Stills really is. He might be one of the most overlooked lead guitarist of rock and roll.
Saturday at the Schottenstein Center in Columbus I had the pleasure of listening to Carole King and James Taylor play hit after hit after hit for nearly 3 hours and I wished it could have gone on longer.
You know I just don’t see a reunion tour of Justin and Miley in 40 years and I’m happier for it.
